


two sides, same coin

by Rupzydaisy



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Betrayal, Gen, Siblings, Twin AU, Twin Theory, different resolution to the mandrake!Sabrina, more emphasis on Sabrina as the Bringer of Change, more emphasis on the Manifesto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 18:18:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19408762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rupzydaisy/pseuds/Rupzydaisy
Summary: Yet, of all the things the Dark Lord foretold when he first came to Nick with his commands, he finds it hard to think of his sister as just a puppet dangling on a string.When he is alone, he feels his father's presence. There are no portals and the tell-tale curls of sulphur do not travel under his dorm's door when he hears the echo of cloven hooves on the creaking old floorboards once again. The air stills to become too warm and stifling.You have done well to bring her this far. My time is at hand. Lead her onwards, she will fall, I shall rise once more, and you will be rewarded.Nick knows better than to wear the conflict raging inside him. So he sits in his chair, barely breathing and bows his head to look like a dutiful son. It is hard, especially in the face of the Dark Lord's omnipotence. But as the air shifts and cool, he presses his clammy palms to his trousers and dares to believe that his efforts are not futile.





	two sides, same coin

**Author's Note:**

> I totally bought into the twin theory and for a split second I really thought it was going to go this way. You’ll have to imagine this fits into a parallel universe where Nick and Sabrina become friends and don't end up dating.

The Dark Lord comes to him in the dead of night and gives Nick his first and only command, _know your sister better, guide her hand so that she may do her unholy duty._

Nick kneels and doesn't think of it as a betrayal. He knows his duty. 

There's a whole other side to her life outside of the Academy's doors and it's a strange sort of looking-glass warping the entire world beyond into its most mundane form, but he knows his place and his side was already chosen. 

*

When Sabrina tosses her hat into the ring and decides to compete for Top Boy, he's unsure just how it might all pan out. Being seconded by Prudence should have rung alarm bells for her, would have done for any other person. She remains undaunted, facing down the long-standing tradition with the same grim look she gave before drinking the foul concoction from the first task. 

His own curiosity has him roped into investigating her suspicions and his fingers trace over the summoning spell needed. "You know, if there's three of them, you wouldn't be pull it off alone."

Her eyes widen in surprise, but her lip curls up. "Are you offering to help, Nick?"

"Help? To forfeit the final challenge and aid you in summoning demons as proof that they've been attacking you?" He tries to brush it off as sarcasm, but she refuses to let it slide and pulls the spell book closer. 

"There's someone here in the Academy trying to sabotage me because they can't bear the idea of a witch being Top Boy." She shakes her head, grits her teeth. "I don't want to just prove it, I want them to know they can't stop me, or any other witch." 

Nick watches her learn the spell, teeth and tongue tripping over the ancient words, and it strikes him again how inexperienced she is. He's well aware of the fickle nature of using old spells like this without having studied them. 

It's easy to tell himself that he should do it because she'd be in danger, that if she tripped on her path now, she wouldn't reach the heights the Dark Lord wanted her to. 

He groans and shrugs his shoulders, "Alright, how do you want to play this?"

*

Nick steps into his father's shoes, or rather his hooves, to take the lead role in the play and it's more than a little unnerving. 

Besides the fact that Father Blackwood had heavily edited the script to something unrecognisable, when he stands on stage and reads aloud, he can see Sabrina flinch in the wings from the corner of his eye. And it might have been bearable having Blackwood interrupt after every page turn to share his thoughts and unholy vision, if only Dorcas could remember her lines.

“Oh, it's...er-”

Dorcas blinks, stares down at the page in front of her and mumbles under her breath. He's unsure whether to carry on or just let her practise with the script so they all wait and the seconds tick by. 

Sabrina huffs loudly from the far-right corner by the stage curtain and uncrosses her arms. She steps out onto the stage while Father Blackwood, Zelda Spellman, and some of the other cast stare on, completely stunned by her interruption.

She picks up right after where Dorcas fumbled and authority rings in her voice, making the speech sound like a command. 

“You cannot crush me. I am the Morningstar. I will burn bright eternally and tear this world asunder. I will break my own chains. I am free, now and forever, never to bow to a false God again.” 

"I will break my own chains." Dorcas repeats flatly after a few moments, still trying to commit the lines to memory, even though they weren't hers. 

The silence is broken and Sabrina spins on her heel and stomps off, leaving the rest of them behind and lacking.

*

“Lupercalia. It's fun! Something your mortal friends could never comprehend, but to us witches and warlocks it's-”

“Sacred.” Prudence cuts in from behind Nick, arms folded and chin tipped, but her eyes dart playfully over him. 

He's known the Weird Sisters since he first showed up on the Academy's steps fresh faced and in a blazer that was slightly too big for him. Prudence had been quick to jostle elbows with him, Agatha and Dorcas following suit. Together they had inducted him into Academy life in their usual double-handed way by keeping him on his toes. They revolved around each other, never truly apart or misaligned while acting the part of, and then becoming nothing but sisters. There are other siblings in amongst the students but no one else flouts themselves or plays shows of strength in the same way; where one falters, the other two bolster.

“The hunt is the _best_ part.” Dorcas chips in, staring hungrily at Nick, who winks back in return, knowing full well that this year he'd have a chance to complete the set. 

Agatha smirks and delivers what the three sisters came for, another low blow at Sabrina. “You won't do it, because you're not a _real_ witch.”

And there it is. 

The expression twists on Sabrina’s face, like she's dangling over a precipice with a single thread just enough to hold on to. Her cheeks redden and she can't quite bite her tongue to hold back yet thoughts. She inclines her head and snaps back at the Weird Sisters, “If I wanted to, I would! But I want it to be with someone I care about.” 

“Oh?” Prudence raises an eyebrow, and her sisters fall in line. “Look at that, she thinks she's better than our traditions.”

The three girls glide away and Sabrina is left behind frustrated again, still shaking her head. “I didn't mean it like that. It's not as simple for me...maybe with Harvey, I don’t know.”

“There’s warlocks aplenty here. It could be.” Nick replies and leaves it at that. 

Sabrina does attend Lupercalia, but only as a spectator. She stands at the side-lines and watches as the girls take flight into the woods, their red cloaks flapping behind them. Nick grins at her before racing into the trees after Dorcas. It is the last time that night where his heart is light and racing with excitement. 

When it quickly turns sour, she’s the one by his side, not Dorcas. 

His familiar had found his way back to him, and he’s torn between doing what’s right and doing what needs to be done. Nick can't bring himself to do kill her in the woods the first time around, months ago. Yet it's his own bad luck that he's there again with the dagger hilt biting into his palm and his blood chilling in his veins. The night is cold, and his hands colder still. The trees whisper to themselves, leaves brushing to softly mock him. 

When Amalia looks at him and he's reminded of everything she's done for him, he hates himself. The only family he's ever known driven mad by the revelation that his attention would now be forever split. Nick feels the pain of their separation the instant the blade cuts through her soft fur, feels his own heart breaking. It goes beyond any pain or fear he’s ever felt before. Once again, his father’s command comes first and knows this was needed to make sure that Sabrina would be safe to fulfil His prophecy.

Nick feels her disappointment in the lightness of her touch on his shoulder, but she was too _good_ to leave him there alone in the dark as he deserved for lying to her. 

His shoulders slump under the weight, knowing now she's all the family he has and for a brief moment he resents having to loyally follow Satan's command. 

*

Nick slips into the comic store earlier than he planned just to get out of the rain when an older woman spots him, calls him over with a wave of her hand, "Come, come. Sit, and let Mrs McGarvey read your cards."

There's another loud rumble of thunder that shakes the windowpanes and he's got nothing better to do than to wait for Sabrina to arrive. He smiles at Hilda Spellman who fusses behind the counter and barely spares him a quick, flustered, "Hello" before hustling off into the backroom. 

This stranger sitting in the corner smells like lilacs and rain, not as cool and crisp as the torrent outside, but a heavy, cloying scent. She puts aside her cup of tea, pushes the plate of biscuits away and with a casual flick of her wrist, she turns her cards over and then back again. 

"Okay, but I don't buy into this kind of thing normally." 

He regards her in all her kooky mortalness, with strings of beads and heavily patterned clothes as he sits. From the corner of his eye, Hilda Spellman looks horrified, but Nick smiles blandly and is charming as ever. 

"That's what they all say." Mrs McGarvey tells him with a knowing smile that's almost as well practised as his own. 

"Then, tell me, what have I been missing?" He jostles the table with his foot and she accidentally flips the first card over. "The Star? Will I be famous?"

"Upright? Faith? I wouldn't say so." She frowns and reshuffles the desk, fingers nimble and mouth twisted. Then her smile reappears, "Now, my young friend, let's see what's in store for you."

Nick sweeps a finger over the semicircle of fanned out cards and chooses three. Mrs McGarvey turns them over unceremoniously, eager to share her description of his upcoming fortunes. She moves with a patience that has to be learned and takes her time to name each one. 

"Justice. The Hermit. Strength." Her smile widens and widens and suddenly he finds it hard to swallow. "And as luck would have it, they're all reversed. That's not unheard of, when there's external forces at work."

"What?" 

He slides back in his chair but she grasps his forearm. Her bracelets scratch his wrist and knuckles, and when he tries to lean back again, she digs her nails in hard. She wears a self-assured smile on her face, but her eyes are dark and hard.

"Like a twig in a stream, or something like a guiding hand, wouldn't you say? Let's take a look, dear."

The world around him dissolves into nothingness and Nick finds himself standing in a vision of a future he's been personally led towards since his birth by Lucifer himself. 

Nick sees his father's plans come to fruition. He sees his lies take hold and Sabrina falters. She is thwarted from stepping up. He helps nudge more obstacles into her path as his father bids, draws her further along the Path of the Night to find darkness everywhere. When self-doubt takes hold and crushes her spirit, Sabrina caves and becomes less, a shadow of herself, with Satan's hands on her shoulders and the door to Hell wide open. Finally, she submits to the darkness and is a husk with only her lank blonde hair left as a remnant of her former self. 

He scrambles back to reality. 

Gasping hard, Nick stands and almost falls over his chair. 

"That's more like it." Mrs McGarvey nods to herself. 

"What was that?" He grabs hold of his sanity and asks, "That was a glamour, wasn't it? You're just a two-bit witch with nothing better to do." He spits it out and stands up, watching and waiting for retaliation, looking for a hint of something that he could use to help convince himself that what he saw wasn’t true. 

Opposite him, the woman's form flickers from Mrs McGarvey to something else. A young woman with her face worn thin, an older woman with jet black hair neatly coiffed up and red, red lipstick. The smell of sulphur curls up and he connects the dots as her face settles back in a congenial smile. 

"I've never been _just_ anything. Now hurry along and let the adults play," Lilith chides.

*

Even while he helps to retrieve the manifesto, Nick keeps prodding and poking. Trying to unsettle her. To him, the choice is easy. Who would even want to be mortal, if they were given a choice? 

Sabrina, in her unusual position sits between two chairs. It is the easiest place to fall from. His father was counting on it, but Nicholas thinks it would be a personal triumph of sorts if she landed on the unholy and immortal side, along with him. Not for the first, he thinks what it would be like if she knew he was her brother, if she wasn’t an only child. 

“Why do you keep going back? To your old friends, your old school, old boy Harry.”

“Harvey.” She corrects him without a moment's breath, having given up on his teasing but not her pining from her self-imposed exile. “And it's not like I have to choose, either the Academy or Greendale. I’ve taken a break, but I’m going back.”

He scoffs as the glamour takes hold and he sees the face of Edward Spellman looking back at him in the mirror, “It all withers and crumbles. They'll move on faster, all fickle.” 

It shouldn't even work like that.” “She shakes her head. “Nick, it's who I am. I'm Sabrina Spellman of Greendale. I grew up with Roz and Theo and Harvey. It's _all_ mine.”

“But they're so mortal."

She smiles softly back at him, wearing her mother's face. 

Nick doesn't say what he really thinks, _when you put it like that, you make it sound like it means more._

He focuses on the task at hand, having heard her concerns about the way Father Blackwood throws his weight around and the way certain students at the Academy are now circling around him. They’re drawn to his show of power like moths to a flame. Nick keeps his ears open and sees a trap laid around Ambrose, waiting to be tugged shut by clumsy fingers. He offers a cryptic warning, but Sabrina’s cousin is dismissive, unbelieving that the hand that offered him freedom was poised to viciously snatch it back. 

They make their stand at the wedding and fail. Their glamours fall quickly and Nick is back inside his own skin, but he doesn't forget the tip of Edward Spellman's shoulders or the look in Sabrina's watery eyes when she first saw their reflections in the mirror, feeling closer to her parents in such a long time.

*

He drinks to forget his expulsion. Dorian tries to offer kind words, but they fall on deaf ears. He knocks back glass after glass, and none of it is enough. He's homeless and homesick, and desperate to return. When Sabrina comes and tries to shake him out of it, he needles back, jealous that she has a whole other life to fall back onto. The Academy was a choice for her, and it was everything for him. 

The Academy falls under the angels’ attack and they return to help. The front doors are shattered, and Ambrose Spellman lies in a pool of his own blood in the middle of the Great Hall amidst rubble. Red bubbles burst on his lips, even as he tries to warn them off with his last breaths. 

“Leave, cousin. Angels. Save yourselves.”

Sabrina's eyes widen as she crouches down to rest a shaking hand on Ambrose's fluttering chest. Harvey leans over like the shadow he is, weak and human with only a gun slung over his shoulder and a look of absolute horror on his face. 

“We _have_ to do something." 

Hilda stays to stop Ambrose from dying, and Harvey can’t look an angel without dying himself. Nick can’t follow her either, not onto consecrated ground, and he doesn’t see her fall shot through with arrows.

Or her rise. 

But he can feel his father’s presence when she walks back into the dorm room. The darkness bestowed on her flares up the surface. By Lucifer’s hand, Sabrina is reborn with a new light in her eyes and is driven by a powerful desire for vengeance despite offering both the most merciful and impossible alternative. She had carried it out swiftly and without wavering according to those trapped inside the church, along with another of the miracles by healing her cousin. Her Aunt Hilda lets out a sob of relief once it’s over and Ambrose can breathe without gasping. 

Sabrina looks down over the both of them with a serene look on her face. Her new powers are wielded like an extension of herself. It's painfully clear that she can do magic long lost and far beyond her years. 

Yet, of all the things the Dark Lord foretold when he first came to Nick with his commands, he finds it hard to think of his sister as just a puppet dangling on a string. 

When he is alone, he feels his father's presence. There are no portals and the tell-tale curls of sulphur do not travel under his dorm's door when he hears the echo of cloven hooves on the creaking old floorboards once again. The air stills to become too warm and stifling. 

_You have done well to bring her this far. My time is at hand. Lead her onwards, she will fall, I shall rise once more, and you will be rewarded._

Nick knows better than to wear the conflict raging inside him. So he sits in his chair, barely breathing and bows his head to look like a dutiful son. It is hard, especially in the face of the Dark Lord's omnipotence. But as the air shifts and cool, he presses his clammy palms to his trousers and dares to believe that his efforts are not futile. 

*

Sabrina walks with a lightness to her. If he squints, Nick thinks he can make out the shadow of a crown on her head, a warped version of the crown of thorns the angels placed on her. She doesn't seem to feel the weight of it. Maybe it is as ethereal as it looks, a mere shimmer for now as she goes about trying to help her old friends. One day soon it will be there for real. 

Edward Spellman’s manifesto is unlike anything he's ever heard. Much like the puzzle box he created, it is enchanting with a vision of the future that could only be dreamt up by one half-living it and longing to share it. Nick wonders how he managed to find the courage to defy his mentors and stray from bindings that had shaped witch culture for centuries. 

Others would call it madness, but Nick has spent hours in the library with taboo books piled up around him, searching for glimmers of that genius titled by the former Anti Pope himself, and it did seem that Spellman had pursued his ideas and dreamed his dreams because they had brought him genuine happiness. 

When Sabrina reads her father's manifesto aloud for the rest of the Academy to hear, she speaks with a confidence that is wholly true. An unshakable pillar of strength and belief in the words of a man long dead; one who would have been considered a traitor to his kind by the traditionalists in their coven no matter his genius and skill.

“Father Blackwood has shared his manifesto with us. One where witches and warlocks are treated differently.” She turns on the spot where she’s seated and addresses her crowd, “But I have brought another path. One where witches and warlocks are equals. Where there are no hierarchies between us, or mortals."

When Nick looks around as the rose petals fall, he sees that for all their differences, Sabrina and their father are far more alike than they would presume. They both stray from their written paths and hope to break the shackles they consider worthless. Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, Lucifer Morningstar turned his back on his father and fell, and wrote his ideals onto the earth below. 

With her house party, Sabrina Spellman might just try the same by putting her words into actions. 

Nick stands on the ground and watches her climb onto the roof, broomstick in hand, ready to deliver her truth. Around him, the buzz in the air rises like static. It builds up from a faint murmuring from the young people around them. Ambrose Spellman sits on the fence further back, watching with a pinched look. He is a radical, right down to his bones, and although his youth had left him during his decades of house arrest, the receding years hadn't been able to sweep away the desire of watching change take place. Like a moth to a flame, he follows the rest. 

With a simple act of stepping into thin air, she'd be able to forge a brave new world of mortal and witches living side by side. 

"Where's Sabrina?" Harvey appears, grabbing onto Nick's arm and pulling him away from the centre of the crowd. "Sabrina needs to see something, in the mines, now!"

Distracted by his shouting, Nick points up to the roof.

"What's she doing?"

"She's proving herself, proving her father's life work." Nick says resolutely, turning around so that he's got a clear view again. 

Harvey rocks back on his feet, knocking into Theo who was bent over and breathing hard. He sees it for what it looks like, and in his panic is only able to take it at first glance. 

"She can't jump, she'll hurt herself!" 

"No, she won't." Nick reminds him, and there’s a sudden flash of understanding behind Harvey’s eyes. 

"She'll...fly?" Theo guesses wryly having caught his breath back, looking a little in awe of his friend.

Sabrina raises a hand and there's a ripple of whoops and cheers. From down below, Nick can imagine that she's nervous. He would be too. She’s about to change everything. Nothing so daring had ever been written into the Academy’s history books, not since Lucifer Morningstar fell and carved out his throne in Hell. 

"You're getting it now." He quips with a small smile, "There's Academy witches and warlocks here, along with your friends from Greendale High. Tonight, is the start of something new."

"That's not all that's new," Theo tacks on darkly, blue eyes fixed on Sabrina’s silhouette. 

The urgency in his voice has Nick dragging his eyes away from the sky again and he listens to the two mortal boys quickly explain what they found buried deep down in the mines. 

"It looks so much like her." Theo says, panic rising up in his voice. "And that old woman had made a shrine! It’s weird, really, _really_ weird."

"Sabrina!" Harvey calls out again, waving his hands and breaking through the crowd. "Come down!" 

"Wait, no!" Nick calls out, pushing forwards to grab the mortal boy by the back of his collar. When he yanks Harvey back, he’s shrugged off but drops his hands and offers a sympathetic nod. "Let her finish this. You know what it means to her."

Harvey swallows nervously and when they look up, despite the darkness, they can see the confused look on her face. Theo waves awkwardly, feigning normality, and after a moment Harvey raises a hand as well. Nick squints into the darkness and sees Sabrina give a little grim smile back before nodding to herself. 

"This is mad! A good kind of mad, but I can't believe she's really going to do it!" Roz comes to stand beside them, neck craned up, eyes all healed and all-seeing.

"Believe it," nods Theo. 

"Friends, old and new!" Sabrina calls out from above. "Thank you for coming. I have something I want to share with you, now that we're all here together."

"Look around you, there's faces you haven't seen before tonight. Strangers, who are hopefully strangers no more. We all live here, in Greendale. Some of us study at Greendale High and some of us...are students at the Academy of Unseen Arts, a school for magic."

Whispers fly in the air around Nick, from a gaggle of confused mortals and nervous witches. Some shake their heads, thinking this is a disaster in the making, no matter how much they wanted to believe in her words. He holds his nerve and his tongue, and stands dead-still to listen to his sister, willing there to be understanding. 

"We don't have to live apart any longer. There's no need for this forced distance, this exile from each other. All it creates is misunderstanding. We shouldn’t have to live with fear and distrust. Look around you. Witches and warlocks and mortals. You're all here because you believe, like me, like my father, that we can live alongside each other."

"Witches?" A human girl calls out, utterly baffled. She laughs loudly, "Spellman, you're cracked, come down from there!"

"Libby, you’re about to discover that all the rules, all the old ways of thinking are wrong. They limited us, broke us down.” Sabrina sways on the spot and then raises a leg, poised to step off the roof, “But now...things you thought were impossible, aren’t. There’s so much more. I know we’re not friends, but I do believe that you’re brave enough to join us in making the world a better place together.”

She leans forward, her centre of gravity moves from roof tiles to thin air. It’s a leap of faith, in more than one way, and then she hangs suspended above them. Her broomstick is neatly tucked under her, and she bobs in the night breeze, feet dangling over nothingness. 

Libby Chessler’s mouth drops open and she lets out a scream. Others raise their voices in panic, witches and mortals alike. They surge like fish in a shoal, eyes on each other, judgements made and broken in seconds. Other yells join Libby’s, ones of elation, relief and sheer disbelief. 

“This isn’t a trick. It’s magic.” Sabrina says as she drifts down to the ground below. 

As her feet touch the ground, her eyes sweep over everyone assembled, trying to feel for their reactions. But when Harvey and Theo reach her first, and the other mortals don’t turn and run away in terror, she finds they're still trusting the girl they once knew and walked their school halls alongside them. With no further screams, or a call to arms for torches and pitchforks, the witches relax enough to linger. 

Nick hangs back as Sabrina’s friends tell her and Roz what they saw in the mines, and her party is inevitably cut short, but she doesn’t leave them with nothing. “Whoever wants to know more, come back tomorrow night. I’ll be here.”

She leaves the crowd to mingle with each other, to learn from each other, and Nick joins them as they head into the abandoned mine shaft so that he can finally see the prophecy with his own eyes.

*

"You want my help?"

Lilith laughs, all bitter and twisted, despite being tied to a chair in her living room. Nick had agreed to stay behind and watch her, and to come up with a plan that would mean Sabrina didn’t have to make and kill a mandrake version of herself. It was a cruel offering she had given up, and he didn’t believe it was the only way. 

"It's not something for nothing. If she succeeds in stopping the prophecy then the Dark Lord's plan would-"

"Fail."

"Stall." Nick rephrases, watching a dim light flicker in Lilith's eyes. "He could be caught off-guard."

Her eyes flare wide and she murmurs under her breath, "Now, that is treasonous thinking. You would try to subvert the Dark Lord’s will, his own prophecy?"

He sits down at the table opposite her and stretches out his hands on the doily covered top. If he had cards of his own, he’d lay them on the table. But he doesn’t, he only has a half-brained, desperate attempt to persuade the ambitious woman to consider aligning herself with a girl she can only view as competition instead of following orders to ruin her. 

“No, I don’t even think that was what the prophecy is. The Dark Lord wants to use Sabrina for his own means.” He pauses to share his own truth, “But there is something true under all that. She’s going to bring change to all of us, if we let her, if we help her.” 

“She’s only in this position because of me!” Lilith hisses, and the chip on her shoulder reappears along with every slight amplified into the rage festering for so long. “I’ve been guiding her on her way, pushing her and her little friends to be in the right places.”

“Then why not do it again?” He drums his fingers on the table, “Only this time, you can help yourself as well.”

Lilith draws herself upright and barely breathes, barely blinks. He thinks for a moment that she’s planning something else and it puts his teeth on edge, but then the light floods back into her eyes. 

She truly looks deadly when she speaks again. “There is a final part of the prophecy. The last of the perversions the False God’s prophet committed. She must kill herself.” 

Her eyes drift away from his and she stares into the cold fireplace. “It seems harder than it is, but that’s the way these things go. You can fool yourself into believing that it’ll all just fall into place, by His guiding hand. I used to believe that, right up until he had my own Stolas betray me, and fed me my Adam’s head.”

Nick shakes his head, piecing it together. “That’s why you told her about the mandrake. You think she can’t do it.” 

“She’s already done it.” Lilith smiles with a touch of disappointment, “Ever so good at following advice, is our Sabrina. And now she has to choose. It’s either herself or the risk of that unbridled dark power naively inflicting itself on everything she loves-”

“Don’t.” He cuts her off, not needing a prophecy to guess what would happen if she was given that choice. “What do we do now?” 

“We prepare for His arrival. Now let me loose, Mr Scratch.”

“You’ll help us?” 

“I’ll do what I need to do, just as long as Sabrina Spellman doesn’t stand in my way. There’s only room for one on the throne of Hell, and I intend it to be for me.” 

They arrive to see the two Sabrinas standing back to back in the centre of a clearing. It’s eerie enough to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as they prepare to duel. The mandrake did its job well and it stands as a true image copy of her. The Sabrina closest to him smiles serenely with her eyes fixed on a point in the mid-distance, the one behind her is just as solid, although he can see her hands shift on the handle of the old pistol. Then there is an exchange of words, a nod and they move, taking strides away from each other and ready themselves to shoot. 

“Wait!” Nick shouts and the two Sabrina’s halt, feet sinking into the muddy ground. “There’s another way!” 

“What’s more honourable than this?” One Sabrina asks lightly, turning back to face the other. 

“I don’t know." The other replies, "But I’m willing to listen if you are?” 

They all head back to the house under false pretences of a final meal, and the mandrake copy smiles at her aunts and chats lightly with Ambrose, unable to recognise the strained air between them all. The real Sabrina hangs back in the doorway to speak with Lilith, whispering under her breath while never taking her eyes off her copy sitting at the parlour table. He understands her hesitation; he’s lived it these past months. The mandrake copy is like looking into a mirror, she _is_ Sabrina, and now she’s going to have to betray herself. 

Her eyes narrow, the grip on her resolve tightens and then she asks, “How do I do it?” 

“Steep the leaves of the mandragora plant for no more than five minutes, and then add the crushed petals of the flower.” Lilith instructs and pushes a scrap of paper into her hand. “This is the spell you’ll need. Get your aunts to help.”

“I don’t want to kill her.” It’s a mournful lament, before its time, but true nonetheless. 

“It is what it is. That much power in her hands, just wandering around Greendale and so ready to inflict itself. Your actions have consequences, Sabrina. Haven’t your aunts taught you that much?” Lilith’s lips press together tightly, scrutinising the expression haunting the young girl and lets out a flippant sigh. “At least, this way she’ll be in her own home, surrounded by the people who she loves. Isn’t it what you’d want?”

Lilith leaves soon after, citing that she needs to make her own arrangements. Nick follows Sabrina into the kitchen and watches the kettle boil while she crushes up the leaves and deposits them in a scrap of cheesecloth. He’s more nervous than he’s ever been but knows he should follow Lilith’s example and shed his lies. His practised words spin relentlessly around his head, around and around. They fly fast and away from his tongue that’s heavy and numb, weighted down by his cowardice. 

He had his chances come and go, right from their very first meeting. _If not now, then when?_

“This will work, right?” She asks, brushing up the mashed petals.

“Yes.” 

“She’s just so-” Sabrina cuts herself off and clenches her fist around the pestle. “And the prophecy. That’s what Ms- Lilith said she was working towards. I trusted her. I trusted her to help me, and she lied to me.” 

The kettle whistles loudly and she reaches over to pour the hot water into the mug. If Lilith was speaking the truth, the dark liquid inside would put the mandrake copy to sleep and then leech the life and powers out and back into Sabrina. All Sabrina had to do was keep skin to skin contact with the copy until dawn. Lilith had warned her before she left, that in the end there wouldn’t be much of the girl left and she’d resemble an overgrown root. If they timed it right and she let go before the transference was fully complete, then not all of the dark power would slip back into her. She still had the chance to rid herself of her fear of losing herself.

Nick braces himself again and opens his mouth to speak. He could just blurt it out, _"I'm your brother."_ It would be so easy to tell the truth now, after a day like this. 

Sabrina speaks before he can, wrapping her fingers around the mug and feeling the warmth seep through to her skin. “Ms War- Lilith came through in the end, right? For whatever her reasons are. It counts for something, doesn’t it?” 

He’s quick to reply, “Yes,” and hopes that she can believe him. 

She nods and looks sideways at the empty corridor leading down to the parlour, “Okay. I'm ready to kill myself.” 

*

They sit around the kitchen table flooded in the pale orange dawn light. No one had slept. They spent the long hours watching the mandrake copy slowly shrivel up. Her limbs retracted and turned knobbly, fingers and toes losing definition. Hilda had left once her hair began falling out, shedding blonde wisps onto the mortuary floor, and returned with armfuls of candles to bring more light into the dark. Zelda and Ambrose remained in their seats, occasionally starting up conversation to ease the tense silence.

At the darkest part of the night, just before dawn, the false Sabrina had let out a half gasp and her skin had mottled grey. 

“Now.” Ambrose called, leaning over her wrinkled face and pressing lightly on her cheek to judge the extent of her withering. 

Sabrina lets go of her wrist, and it ends. 

Hilda leans forwards and brushes her niece’s hair out of her face. “How do you feel, dear?” 

Sabrina closes her eyes, no doubt reaching for the power that has returned to her. She tells Nick later that the power granted by her resurrection lingers, even after the mandrake copy's death. It simmers underneath, bright and glowing, enveloped in humanity and shaped by her welcoming it back on her own terms. 

“Like myself.” 

They bury the mandrake copy in the family graveyard and return with muddy shoes and reddened palms. Hilda stamps the dirt off her shoes and Zelda leans back on the closed door with a shovel in each hand, weakened from her time bound to Father Blackwood's will but growing stronger and more determined to extract her niece from a worse fate. Nick had hung back at the fence line, but now steps forward to take them off her and rests them against umbrella rack.

Ambrose runs his hands over his face, leaving a streak of mud behind. His thoughts race ahead and trip out of his mouth, “This isn’t over. We need a plan, we need something.”

“First, I think, coffee.” Hilda brushes off her hands and heads to the kitchen. 

Zelda follows them, voice fainter than usual but with a prim reminder, “Make it strong. We Spellmans must fortify ourselves and stand tall to face what is coming.” 

*

Nick wavers on a knife edge. 

It shakes his nerves, scares him even. Lilith had told Sabrina that her actions had consequences, and Nick worries what his will be if the Dark Lord has already gleaned that his children move against him. 

He’s unsure if he's even able to do it. To rebel against his father, to shirk off his duty completely, to have the strength to fall in the same way. He’s caught between the two, and the gap widens evermore, threatening to swallow him whole.

*

In the evening, they sit at the table in silence and consider their limited options. All of their attempts had failed and the two daggers Lilith had given them had been next to useless. Back in the parlour room, the last living members of their congregation are slowly recovering from the poison Father Blackwood had slipped into their communion wine, but are left feeling betrayed and broken. 

The idea dawn on Sabrina slowly and she props her head up on her hands to better look at them all. “If I'm the Dark Lord’s _daughter_ then maybe…blood magic?”

“Bold move, cousin,” says Ambrose, leaning back in his chair and exchanging a wary nod with Nick who had stopped breathing. 

He had been allowed back in, arriving to apologise for Lucifer revealing him as his agent but not having the chance to. Zelda had rattled off a list of instructions to help save the rest of the congregation and kept him busy for the rest of the day. When he finally had a chance to speak to Sabrina again, she surprised him by listening to him despite her familiar spitting and yowling as though angels themselves were there. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever trust you again, Nick,” she told him bluntly. “But, we need all the help we can get. If you betray us again, if you lie to me again, I won’t ever forgive you. Ever.” 

"People have a history of underestimating you, Spellman," Nick concedes at her new idea laid out on the kitchen table amongst the empty mugs of antidote. "To think that you can count Lucifer into that number is a slim chance."

Zelda stares into space, weighing it up against the other pitiful options they’d come up with. “But it might work.” 

“Not might, it _has_ to.” Hilda says, “Blood is only part of it though, a medium of spell work. It can _bind_ him, but it won’t _stop_ him. What are you thinking, love?” 

*

Sabrina pricks her forefinger and sits down on the side of her bed to draw the sigils in her own blood. Slowly, she twists the Acheron Configuration in her palms, waiting between each symbol to allow it to dry. The dull pain from the cut barely registers as she truly takes the time to appreciate the beauty of the device. 

Nick understands it, of course he does, “It's incredible, isn't it?”

He speaks from the other side of the room, wary of Salem who had now taken an open dislike to his presence, dragging his claws across any part of him within reach. She doesn’t look at him, they’re not back to that yet, but he’s aware of the important part he’s got in her plan. He’ll carry it out as best he can and round up whoever can stand to join them. 

“My father's work is something no one else could have come up with.” 

The word father is used interchangeable between the Dark Lord and Edward Spellman, but Nick has always known who she means when she says it. She speaks it with pride as she lightly taps a raised spine on the puzzle box with her finger and blows gently to help the blood from smearing. 

He wishes he could do the same.

*

She walks into Lucifer's trap once again. This time she’s dressed fit to be the Queen of Hell and ready to accept the crown. She plays her part well and distracts Lucifer long enough for everyone to take their places in their masquerade costumes so that Ambrose's presence could be hidden. Her cousin sneaks close enough to the Dark Lord's throne and takes his place, ready for her signal. 

The Mephisto Waltz begins, and she dances with their father, right up until the moment she spins away from his arms and doesn’t return. She steps back with a hard look and tells him, "Remember my name. Remember it was me, Sabrina Spellman who beat you."

The open Acheron Configuration slides across the floor and stops by her feet. When he notices it, he tips his head and smirks, unimpressed by another botched attempt at stopping him, until she scoops up the device and holds it tight in her hands. Nick watches as she shuts her eyes and begins to chant the binding spell. The device thrums and the lights flicker violently.

An unholy roar emanates from Lucifer and he flashes between his forms, beast with hooves and angelic. He is pinned to the spot, and her crown of bones glints on her head. Her own magic sticks to him, like for like, and they begin a battle of wills as she chants louder, drowning out his laughs that quickly turn into howls. 

“You dare defy me? Me!" Lucifer screams in his rage and rocks forward. "You stand alone, daughter of mine. And you will fall by my hand now." 

“She's not alone.” Zelda Spellman steps up behind her niece, grips her shoulder with one hand and begins to chant along. 

Blood and blood, working together, pushing forwards. 

Hilda Spellman mirrors her, voice wavering but a solid presence on Sabrina's left. Her free hand reaches out, an open invitation, and it's not long before another slips in. 

The Spellman family are old blood. Their family graveyard has stood the test of time. Its welcomed generations of family into the cold embrace of its soil, and Greendale is theirs from long, long ago. Having old blood is the same as having old roots, gnarled and twisted, and long reaching. There is a presence here that pushes back against the Dark Lord, marking him as uninvited and unwelcome. 

But blood is not always everything. 

Melvin and Elspeth take their places behind Hilda, and more Academy students follow. Some of them had been in the church when Sabrina had performed her miracles while others had listened to her speak about Edward Spellman’s manifesto and accepted her invitation to the mortal-witch mixer party. Not everyone joins in. There are a few who watch with stunned expressions, unable to believe what is happening before their own eyes. There are also a few congregation members who are unable to bring themselves to fight and a handful of Judas boys unwilling to betray their adopted beliefs yet too perturbed to try anything. They hover at the edges of the hall and watch as their world turns onwards without them. 

The Weird Sisters are some of the last to pick a side, eyes watching and consulting. When their time comes, it's Prudence who steps forward until she's beside Zelda Spellman and wraps her fingers around the woman's bony wrist. Dorcas and Agatha are mere milliseconds behind, joining the web of witches chanting on and on. 

Lucifer raises his arms and lets out another scream, one of torment as he's slowly dragged across the floor and sucked into the prison. It burns her fingers and she drops it. The lights flicker and then burn bright again, and he’s gone from sight, but the device isn’t closed and silent as she’d hoped. 

Acting like a lightning rod, Sabrina leans forward, feeling the power flowing through her towards the Acheron Configuration. There is want and will, love and strength, and a deepening well of trust. Pure, blind faith surges in her veins. The pressure builds and her voice grows louder until she's shouting, and all the while the device closes and spins on the floor, rocking and shaking. Red light streams from its fissures, threatening to buckle under the pressure. 

“It's not enough.” Zelda gasps. 

“Mortal blood.” Hilda whines in panic between chants, knowing full well what it means to defy the Dark Lord. 

"Come on, Sabrina!" Harvey shouts from within the crowd. Theo and Roz call out to her too. 

"Keep going!"

"Sabrina, you can do this!"

Nick sees the whole room watching Sabrina with her palms outstretched towards the Acheron Configuration. Sometime between leaving the house and now, the plaster covering the cut on her forefinger had dropped off. The small wound is red raw and in an instant, he knows what he has to do. His fear can only hold him back for so long, and she’d already managed to forgive him once, he could risk it because she’d have to be alive to do it again. 

The knife is sharp and he barely feels the slice against his palm, only the coolness of the blade. The blood drips freely from the cut and he lunges forward as the Acheron Configuration splits open and an unearthly bellow fills the room. Fresh, red blood drips over the device to sink into the grooves and merges with the dried, flaking sigils Sabrina had written. 

“By blood be done,” Nick prefaces while turning it over and over, leaving bloody marks wherever he can. "Until the end of time."

The whole device shudders under his hands and grows unbearably hot. He drops it and scrambles back from the scorch marks on the ground to join in the chant, raising his voice until it helps to drown out the deep growl emanating from the centre of the room. 

The encroaching darkness is sucked out of the hall and into the device entirely. Bright light flares from the torches and chandeliers as their chants fade out. He blinks and looks to the room full of dazed faces. They all stand in silence, hands clasped together or gripped onto shoulders and stare at the Acheron Configuration lying quiet and still on the floor. 

“We did it!” Sabrina calls out ecstatically, letting herself get caught in her aunts’ embraces. “We stopped the apocalypse!” 

*

Sabrina carries the device in her bag as they all walk back to the Spellman house. It’s heavy on her shoulder and gently hits her leg with every step she takes. She’s tired but it doesn’t show. Even her shoulders are lighter, neck unbowed and devoid of the crown she had willingly given up to Lilith, the new Queen of Hell. Nick is with them still, having been hauled out of the main hall by Ambrose when he tried to back away from the prickling feeling of everyone’s eyes on him. 

They all knew now, including her, but she hadn’t said a word to him yet. He has a sinking feeling that she would stick to her promise and never trust him again.

They reach the front porch and Sabrina stands aside and nods at her cousin, who releases Nick. As Zelda passes her, she leans down to presses a shaky kiss to her head and tells her, “Your parents would be so proud of you.”

Sabrina leans into her hug and squeezes her arms tight. "Thank you, aunties."

"We're always with you, my love." Hilda calls from over her shoulder.

Zelda and Ambrose follow her inside, shattered from their efforts and only ushered on by Hilda’s promises of hot tea and almond butter cookies. That and the chance to sleep off the serious spellcasting it takes to imprison the Dark Lord, in a palm-sized puzzle box. 

Not wanting to go inside yet, Sabrina sits down on the porch steps and looks up at Nicholas. He sighs and sits down beside her. He’d like nothing more than to sleep too, if only the nervous knot in his stomach didn’t exist. 

“Why'd you do it?” She finally asks him. He drags his hand over his face, not knowing what to say. “You didn’t have to do it. You of all people knew what the prophecy meant. Hell, you could have been the Dark Lord’s heir if he decided I wasn't worth the trouble.”

His face twists up in disgust. “Like what baby Judas was to Father Blackwood? Become severed from everything. Forced to do his bidding. I didn’t want that.”

“No, you didn’t. You helped me, helped my aunts and my friends. You chose us, I know that much... and you convinced Lilith to hold back the demons at the gate with Harvey, Roz and Theo, didn’t you?” She exhales slowly, “You used your own blood to help seal the Acheron Configuration.” 

“I don’t know what you want me to say? You showed everyone a new future, mortals and witches living together when you stepped off that roof. You made your father’s vision a reality. That was something different, true, but it was more inspired and braver than anything I’ve ever known. No one else could have done what you did, not even Edward Spellman."

“You haven’t answered my question. What made you change your mind?” 

Nick stares back in surprise, stunned that she hasn't realised. “Everyone today followed you, because they believed in you. I do too. You taught me how to love, Spellman, with this family of yours."

She looks out across the front yard and then down at her clunky boots, considering his words. He knows that there's a constant struggle of balance between the heavy legacy of the Spellman name, her two aunts, the Academy, and the mortal world's pull on her. But she tries to meet all their demands, walking the tightrope and swaying precariously and trying not to fall. 

“It includes you too, Nick, if you want.” She says slowly and knocks his arm with her elbow, leaning down against his shoulder. 

His shock freezes him and he fumbles for words lost in the morning mist. "Even though I-"

"I wish you had told me earlier. You should have told me months ago." They lapse into silence again until she breaks it again, "But I do mean it. You chose us, in the end."

He would have sighed in relief if he had any air left in his lungs. Instead he feels the knot in his stomach unhitch and melt away with the realisation of acceptance. 

"I'd like that." He cracks a smile, the first true one in days. “Nicholas Spellman has a certain ring to it, doesn't it?”


End file.
